The inventive subject matter relates to power distribution systems and methods and, more particularly, to systems and methods for monitoring and/or controlling power distribution systems.
The advent of the internet and new developments in computer technology have led to a rapid increase in the number and complexity of data centers. For example, some internet applications, such as e-commerce and cloud computing, are now served by very large data centers housing rows of equipment racks full of servers, disk drive arrays, routers, switches and other computer and communications devices. The equipment in a data center may be distributed across hundreds of thousands of square feet of building space and may span multiple floors and/or buildings.
Such large-scale data centers may have very elaborate and dynamic power distribution systems. For example, a typical large scale data center may include multiple inputs for utility power, along with one or more diesel- or gas-powered generators configured to back up the utility sources via automatic transfer switches (ATSs) and similar devices. Power from these various sources may be distributed via an extensive network of power panels, power distribution units (PDUs) and other devices, along with an array of power lines that interconnect such devices. Backup power for the network may be provided by an array of uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) that provide backup power from batteries or other energy storage devices, such as fuel cells or flywheel energy storage devices. Some data centers also are configured to receive power directly from alternative energy sources, such as wind-powered generators or photovoltaic arrays.
Data centers typically have a modular or semi-modular architecture including multiple racks that house servers, routers and similar devices. This equipment may be frequently interchanged, replaced and otherwise reconfigured as the data center grows and/or tasks performed by the data center change. Maintenance and other operations may also lead to reconfiguration of the data center. Growth and rearrangement often results in reconfiguration of the data center power distribution network as, for example, certain server racks are moved from one power source to another. For purposes such as planning, maintenance and load balancing, it is generally desirable to have up-to-date information on the configuration of the power distribution network.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/814,149, filed Jun. 11, 2010, describes techniques for matching sources of electric power with computing resources. These techniques generally involve correlating source activity data, such as current, power consumption, harmonic distortion and the like, with load activity data, such as CPU utilization, I/O utilization, network utilization and the like.